BEFORE TERRORISTS, WE ARE ALONE

February 19, 2019

By T.J.S. George

Prime Minister
Modi had, and will continue to have, the backing of all of India in his stand
against the terrorists who “made a big mistake” in attacking jawans
in Pulwama. The attack must have given the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and its
protectors in Pakistan a cheap thrill of achievement as they managed to kill 44
CRPF men in one go. But it was a big mistake because it made India unite
against the assassins. Enemies have been shown that they cannot take advantage
of India’s noisy democracy and create divisions in the name of religion.

Nevertheless,
the latest JeM strike is an opportunity for us to examine our record, our
resolve and our capabilities more closely than before. The unity of purpose that binds India together
in crises is different from the ability to stop terrorists in their track. The
record shows that JeM’s ability to
strike has in no way been curbed over the years. They attacked India’s
Parliament in 2001 and the IAF base in Pathankot in early 2016. Later that year
four terrorists near Uri town were able to stage “the deadliest attack on
security forces in Kashmir in two decades.” In retaliation to the Uri
attack, India said it made a surgical strike. The people know precious little about it, except that it
has not weakened JeM in any way. Within a year and a half, they struck at
Pulwama.

A reality that
has to be faced is that this is a war India has to fight alone because, at the
international level, India really has no friends. This isolation is linked to a series of
strategic blunders beginning from the time of independence. When Pakistan
rushed tribal fighters from the Northwest Frontier to capture Srinagar in 1947,
Sardar Patel was quick to rush troops there and save the situation. If the soldiers were given a few more days
they could have thrown the tribals out of Kashmir and brought the whole State under Indian control. But Viceroy Mountbatten played the friendship
card with Jawaharlal Nehru and managed to get a ceasefire ordered, permanently
dividing the State between India and Pakistan. Nehru went on to make blunders
by allowing the UN a role in the dispute and by pledging to hold a plebiscite
in the State. Britain, a world power in
those days, was unfriendly to India and manipulated the UN in Pakistan’s
favour.

India’s next
round of blunders occurred under Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee. The
hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999 was handled with great
incompetence. The pilot had cleverly pleaded
fuel crisis and got permission from the hijackers to land in Amritsar. This was
an opportunity for India to take control of the situation. But in Amritsar, as
a member of Vajpayee’s staff put it later, “airport officials ran around
like so many headless chicken, totally clueless about what was to be
done.” A team of special commandos
could not reach the airport because of traffic problems in the city.

The flight
finally landed in Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The Government, still clueless, not only agreed to all the demands of
the hijackers, but Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh personally went to Kandahar
in a special plane along with terrorists released from Indian prisons (and
bundles of currency notes, as some reports said).

The main
terrorist released by India to satisfy the hijackers was Masood Azhar who had
been in Indian prisons for five years. Accorded a hero’s reception in Pakistan,
the man went on to found the JeM and become the world’s most strongly motivated
terrorist.

What India needs
to realise is the futility of depending on others to come to its aid. Pleading
for UN intervention is useless because China has veto power there and China is
as openly hostile to India as it is friendly to Pakistan.US will give verbal
support to India but nothing more, especially now when it is planning to
withdraw from Afghanistan with Pakistan’s cooperation. Saudi Arabia under
Mohammed bin Salman? Forget it.

Look beyond and
we see another approach. US special commandos found out a secret hide-out in
Pakistan, staged a lightning operation there and killed Osama bin Laden before
anyone knew what was happening. In 1976
when an Air France flight was hijacked by a Palestinian faction demanding the
release of militants imprisoned by Israel, a completely unexpected 90-minute
night operation by Israel in Uganda’s Entebbe airport rescued 102 of the 106
hostages there.

ONE COMMENT ON THIS POST To “BEFORE TERRORISTS, WE ARE ALONE”

History is witness to the stark reality that the battles against the scourge of terror are fought by nations on an individual basis.Glaring instances are Israel, United States and France.India should emulate them and with a broad international consensus favouring it strong and effective counter strikes should be resorted to ward off Pak sponsored terror once for all.

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